


He Used To Be Mine

by Chaz_1789



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Canon Insert, Ficlet, M/M, Post-Prisoner of Azkaban, just a small injection of pain, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 19:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15848049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaz_1789/pseuds/Chaz_1789
Summary: July 1994 - DerbyshireRemus burst into the delapidated shack with the force of a man on a mission, dust sprinkled down from the roof, swirling motes into the air between himself and the skeletal figure that had risen from its perch on the edge of a crumbling crate.





	He Used To Be Mine

July 1994 - Derbyshire

  
Remus burst into the delapidated shack with the force of a man on a mission, dust sprinkled down from the roof, swirling motes into the air between himself and the skeletal figure that had risen from its perch on the edge of a crumbling crate.

Silence fell like a shroud. Years of words and trauma and assumptions bottlenecked into a cloying quiet.

He folded under the pressure. Knees now too old for it thunked into the rotting floorboards.

"I'm so sorry," he forced out, addressing his most recent failing first. "I ruined everything, I'm so, so sorry!"

Quick footfalls answered him and in the midst of his guilt, of his anguish, sickly thin and weak arms closed around Remus' shoulders. The arms felt foreign. He knew who they belonged to, but it didn't feel like he did.

"Moony, don't–"

"If I'd have taken my potion like I was meant to Peter would never have escaped, you'd be a free man!"

The sharp bony fingers gripping him tightened almost painfully.

"Remus," came the growl, sounding canine and so very human at the same time. Remus looked up and shuddered. The face, the eyes, so familiar but so alien. It made his skin crawl and he vainly attempted to superimpose his memories of what that face had been.

Young. Handsome. Mischievous.

His.

Remus ran a hand up to the emaciated cheekbone, traced his finger along the papery crows foot at the corner of one sunken, shadowy eye. Sirius flinched with a force present in only those completely divorced from a life of tenderness.

They were kneeling, uncomfortable and awkward on a dirty wooden floor, gazing at strangers they should know.

"We lost everything," Remus whispered.

The sallow face twitched involuntarily.

And Remus wanted to kiss him. Wanted to meet their mouths as they had done so many times, so many years ago, so very passionately. Wanted to pull away and see the man he had known and fallen in love with, as though Remus' kiss was all that were needed to break this awful curse and fully restore the substance to this ugly shell.

But he couldn't.

Sirius looked sharp and on edge. And Remus didn't know him.

They stayed kneeling for an age – until Dumbledore's owl arrived bringing with it a new location for Sirius to secret himself. As one they drifted apart, and the distance felt continental yet again.

Sirius raised his borrowed wand with one wasted arm ready to disappear once more and the gnawing pit that was Remus' stomach clenched oppressively. His arm swung out to grip Sirius' before he could leave him all over again.

"I'll write," said Remus. It was a plea more than anything, a desire for any shadow of the kind of affection he had once been freely given, but was now too scared to mention by name.

Sirius blinked and for a fleeting moment he was there! Diluted and faint as a spectre, but truly before Remus' eyes, the brilliant, beautiful, flawed man that had shaped Remus into the person he was today. Thirteen years of hell could erode but not eradicate.

His Sirius.

"I'll write back," Sirius croaked out.

And then he was gone. Remus' hand closed on air.

Flickering hope, sputtering, tiny, and sickeningly ill-advised germinated within him. The gasping bellows of his lungs scraping air into his body bounced off the walls. A minuscule tap as the tear hit his lapel.

And Remus stayed well into the moonless night, in that rickety cabin, besieged by memories of an emotion more powerful than the wolf had ever been. 


End file.
